Digital Commons Network^™

Urban Ground Covers Influence Soil Characteristics And Beetle Communities In Riparian Zone, Anthony Calder, Ryan Atkins, Vashti Devi B Mahadeo, Weixing Zhu

Research Days Posters 2022

Riparian zones are terrestrial habitats adjacent to rivers or streams that frequently undergo environmental fluctuation and offer unique ecosystem services. Previous research has shown that varying ground cover due to urbanization can lead to adverse effects on soil quality and arthropod abundance. This experiment investigates ground cover effects on arthropod communities, soil pH, and conductivity. The ground covers examined in this experiment were control, litter addition, litter removal, and grass addition. Forty plots were constructed in October 2020 in an urban riparian forest within Binghamton University’s Nature Area. Ground arthropods were collected in June, July, and September of 2021 while …

Cleaning Chemicals From The Environment Utilizing Mycoremediation: The Capacity Of Three Fungi Species To Intercept Perfluorooctanoic Acid, Mary Campbell

Research Days Posters 2022

Anthropogenic contamination of water, soil, and air has been increasingly documented over the past few decades. One chemical of particular concern is Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA), which is found in fluoropolymers present in non-stick pan coatings and stain resistant fabrics in clothing and rugs. It can also be generated from the degradation of larger perfluorinated compounds, such as Perfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS). It is pervasive in the environment, and resists degradation which has led to its presence in low levels within human blood worldwide. Numerous human health risks have been noted from PFOA contamination and exposure, including hypertension, thyroid disorders, cancers, and …

Does Artificial Light At Night Influence Amphibian Development And Color Changing Abilities?, Kelsey Horn, Grascen Shidemantle, Isabela Velasquez Gutierrez, Emily Ronan, Jurnee Blackwood

Research Days Posters 2022

Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) is a pervasive contaminant characterized by the presence of excessive manmade light at times not consistent with the natural day/night cycle. ALAN has several physiological and morphological effects on humans and wildlife, including altering amphibians’ development and skin pigmentation, both of which affect amphibians’ susceptibility to predators and their subsequent fitness. For instance, many amphibians can change their pigmentation to blend in with their surroundings (and hide from predators) through a process called background adaptation. While exposure to ALAN can make tadpoles darker, it is unclear how this pollutant affects background adaptation overall. To test …

Public Health Implications Of Chronic Wasting Disease: A Fifteen Year Follow-Up To A Point Source Exposure In Upstate New York, Cambria Weeden, Amanda Roome, Kathryn Olszowy

Research Days Posters 2022

Prion diseases have become increasingly important within biomedical research over the past several decades due to the increasing prevalence of these diseases among human and non-human animal populations and their potential to cross the species barrier. Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) represents one condition with a troubling potential for cross-species transmission from cervids to humans. Prion diseases are 100% fatal and no treatment currently exists. According to USGS, CWD has been identified among both free-ranging and commercially captive cervids in Asia, Europe, and North America. The Oneida County Chronic Wasting Disease Surveillance Project involves a collaborative effort between the Oneida County …

Expectation Versus Reality: Perceived Differences In Cognitive Ability Between Men And Women, Lily Chiu, Julia Smargiassi, Lauren Rothman, Kimberly Burns

Research Days Posters 2022

In Western society, there is a common belief that there are clear differences between male and female brains. In our project, we hope to gain insight into the beliefs of undergraduate students regarding this very idea. We are surveying Binghamton University students about their perceptions regarding the differences in cognitive ability between cis-gender men and women. Our survey asks students if certain skills are gendered, which gender these skills are more closely associated with, and where students learned these stereotypes. These results will be compared to the current state of knowledge about cognitive differences between the sexes. We anticipate that …

Detecting Apparent Competition By Shared Parasitoid Enemies Between A Native And A Range-Expanding Oak Insect, Leslie Huang, Rachel Chen, Aly Milks, Dylan G. Jones, Kirsten M. Prior

Research Days Posters 2022

The expansion of a species’ range due to anthropogenic change leads to changes in species interactions with cascading effects in ecosystems. Oak gall wasps and their parasitoid enemies are a diverse community of insects that are structured by a network of interactions. One important interaction is “apparent competition,” in which a gall wasp species can indirectly compete with another species through shared parasitoids. Neuroterus saltatorius, an oak gall wasp, is experiencing a range expansion on the west coast of North America, where it outbreaks and causes damage in oak ecosystems. A co-occurring oak gall wasp, Andricus opertus, shares its range …

Relationships Between Mental Distress And Food Intake Parameters Using Exploratory Data Analysis, Kanishk Barhanpurkar, Saloumeh Sadeghzadeh, Lina Begdache

Research Days Posters 2022

Dietary intake plays an important role in the development of physical and mental health. Vital nutrients support day-to-day activities and biological processes. The physical health parameters can be easily correlated with the type of dietary intake. However, mapping of mental health parameters is still an area in need of further research. It is a strenuous task as it is widely dependent on a broad spectrum of attributes. The dataset is collected from a survey study on a group of 227 individuals who are categorized based on their gender and age. A questionnaire that contains 26 parameters is used for collecting …

Bioterrorism: A Largely Unrecognized 21st Century Threat, Michael Balboni

Research Days Posters 2022

Bioterrorism—the intentional release of harmful biological agents to generate illness or death in others—is no new phenomenon. This piece aims not to fearmonger, nor to create distrust toward governments; instead, its goal is to raise awareness of the potential danger of bioterrorism and to potentially spark action in greater preparation for such events. Bioterrorism is a momentous issue that does not deserve to be overlooked—for the sake of the future. In the 14th century BC, the Hittites performed what is considered by many to be the first act of bioterrorism. Following the Hittites were countless more examples of this type …

Genes Affecting Intestinal Stem Cell Development Influence Longevity In Female Drosophila On A High Sugar Diet, Avi Stern, Charles Grossbauer, Alexa Schwartz, Brandon Vasquez, Dave Colucci

Research Days Posters 2022

Obesity and type two diabetes have become widely prevalent and for this reason it is of increasing importance to characterize the physiological toll of excess sugar consumption. Here we used the model organism, Drosophila melanogaster, to perform a genome wide association study (GWAS) for differences in longevity among females fed a high sugar diet. There were highly significant differences in survival among the 205 inbred lines we tested, indicating a genetic basis to survival. The GWAS identified nine genes overall. Three of these genes (headcase, wing blister and rau) affect the proliferation and differentiation of intestinal stem cells (ISCs). Proper …

The Health Impact Of Dietary Choices On Ni-Vanuatu, Connor Celeste, Lauren Loewen, Connor Lawless, Sierra Winter, Kelsey Baer, Kinsley Kilgore

Research Days Posters 2022

This study sought to determine the link between market integration based dietary choices and health among residents of Vanuatu. Surveys were collected among a cross section of the populations found on multiple islands among the archipelago. The participants came from distinct communities with various levels of development. They recalled the food they ate within a 24-hour period, which the surveyors recorded along with some photos that will be used to assess average servings. These surveys informed a list of commonly consumed foods which was enriched with nutritional minutiae collected from the USDA FoodData central database. A paper published in August …

The Most Dangerous Branch Of Science? Reining In Rogue Research And Reckless Experimentation In Social Services, James G. Dwyer

Missouri Law Review

Most people are unaware how much public policy is either lacking in any empirical-research support or driven by bad research. Political actors motivated by ideology or donor/constituent demands propose new government practices—in areas ranging from policing to funding of treatments for gender dysphoria in youth to welfare-qualification rules—that will greatly impact people’s lives, and if anyone asks what basis they have for thinking the impact will be good, they can readily find some study to support their case. Especially when powerless populations are put at risk, neither the legislative process nor peer review in the publication process provides a real …

Multi-Objective Adapted Binary Bat For Test Suite Reduction, Nagwa R. Fisal, Abeer Hamdy, Essam A. Rashed

Software Engineering

Regression testing is an essential quality test technique during the maintenance phase of the software. It is executed to ensure the validity of the software after any modification. As software evolves, the test suite expands and may become too large to be executed entirely within a limited testing budget and/or time. So, to reduce the cost of regression testing, it is mandatory to reduce the size of the test suite by discarding the redundant test cases and selecting the most representative ones that do not compromise the effectiveness of the test suite in terms of some predefined criteria such as …

Full Issue

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

David Christian. Maps Of Time: An Introduction To Big History. University Of California Press, New Edition, 2004. Leonid E. Grinin, Andrey V. Korotayev, Barry H. Rodrigue, Eds. Evolution: A Big History Perspective. Volgograd: Uchitel Publishing House, 2011., Stephen T. Satkiewicz

Comparative Civilizations Review

What is history? Or rather, what are the appropriate time-scales that can be constituted as “history”? The general consensus among scholars is that history is the study of approximately the last 5,000 years or so due to the existence of written records. Anything prior to that is generally considered pre-history, at least as far as it concerns the existence of human beings on earth. As for the creation of the earth we live upon, or the solar system our planet dwells within, or the universe as a whole these are considered outside the formal domain of historical …

Flip The Class, Not The Canoe! Methods For Formative Assessment In The Fipped Library Classroom, Kelly Getz, Sarah Fabian

LOEX Conference Proceedings 2019

No abstract provided.

Concept Inventories: Teaching Information Literacy Like A Physicist, Greg Szczyrbak

LOEX Conference Proceedings 2016

No abstract provided.

Spatial Localization Of Markers And 3d-Cell Model For Study Of The Human Cytomegalovirus Cytoplasmic Virion Assembly Compartment, Taylor Alan Vensko

Wayne State University Theses

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) causes severe disease in immunocompromised individuals and is a leading cause of congenital disease. Efficient assembly of virions (viral particles) is an intricate process that requires modulation and modification of host systems. HCMV induces an extensive rearrangement of the cellular endocytic recycling compartment into the site of virion maturation and egress: the cytoplasmic virion assembly compartment (cVAC). The HCMV cVAC is a distinguishing characteristic of infection, although studies have only been performed in traditional cell culture with limited observations in infectedhuman tissues. To study the cVAC, viral and cellular markers that are discrete to their respective compartments …

Computational Single-Cell Analysis Of Confocal Fluorescence Images With Dapi-Generated Masks, Munirah Alduhailan

Wayne State University Theses

Lipolysis is a metabolic pathway in which free fatty acids are mobilized from stored triglycerides. The rate-limiting enzyme in this process is adipose triglyceride lipase, which is regulated by α/β-hydrolase domain-containing protein 5 (ABHD5) via both natural and synthetic pathways. With advanced artificial neural networks, image processing methods can extract quantitative results from fluorescence images. The segmentation of complex biological images, in which regions of the image are labeled as distinct masks, is the first step in image analysis. Ilastik, a machine-learning software, performs image segmentation with a user-trained neural network and custom key feature labels. The software’s results are …

Increased Cd11b+ Immune Cells Contribute To Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm Rupture, Lucynda Pham

Wayne State University Theses

A life-threatening clinical manifestation of Marfan Syndrome (MFS) is the development of thoracic aortic aneurysms (TAA) which can lead to dissection and or rupture. MFS is caused by mutations in extracellular matrix (ECM) protein, Fibrillin-1 (FBN1) which forms the structural component of elastic microfibrils. It is unclear how mutations in FBN1 cause aneurysm development and progression. In recent years, inflammation and immune cells are being considered an important biological process that contributes to TAA. However, the exact roles of the immune cells are unknown. Here we find increased CD11b+ cells recruited and infiltrated into the vessel wall and their spatial …

Bostock And Contact Theory: How Will A Single U.S. Supreme Court Decision Reduce Prejudice Against Lgbtq People?, Mantas Grigorovicius

Indiana Law Journal

In 1954, Gordon Allport, one of the nation’s leading social psychologists, laid out a hypothesis explaining how prejudice could be reduced by intergroup contact. Decades later, his hypothesis became a theory with thousands of research hours behind it. Under contact theory, one of the factors that facilitates a reduction in prejudice between two groups is support of authorities or law. This Comment focuses on Bostock v. Clayton County, a recent Supreme Court decision holding that Title VII prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. Allport suggested that antidiscrimination laws help to “lead and guide the folkways,” and this Comment explores how …

What Will The “Foreseeable Future” Bring For Climate- Imperiled Species?, Olivia Bauer

Indiana Law Journal

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is the strongest source of federal protection for species that are at risk of extinction, and the ESA is becoming increasingly important as climate change threatens species and their habitats more than ever. In 2019, the Trump Administration amended the ESA to provide clarity and predictability when making decisions to list a species as threatened or endangered under the ESA. The Administration defined “foreseeable future” in a way that starkly limits how far into the future the listing agencies may look when assessing risks to species. Prior to the 2019 definition of “foreseeable future,” the …

Backdoor To Essentialism? Genetic Ancestry Testing And The Social Deconstruction Of Whiteness, Whitney Hunt

Wayne State University Dissertations

Towards the turn of the 21st century, spawned in part by the Human Genome Project, ideas about race and ethnicity shifted away from the essentialist belief that humans can be grouped into discrete, biologically relevant racial groups. More recently however, genetic ancestry testing (GAT) has exploded in popularity, as individuals seek to identify their ancestry and/or health profiles through genetic testing. Genetic testing commercials implicitly promote the essentialist belief that racial and ethnic identities are embedded in genes by portraying images of people altering travel plans, checking a different racial category on a survey, or trading in bagpipes for lederhosen, …

Guide To Ms310 Military History Collection, Lucina Herrera, Eugenio Cantu

Finding Aids

This artificial collection includes photos, clippings, manuscripts, manuals, and other items. Collection dates from circa 1910s – 1996.

Assessing Sex-Specific Circadian, Metabolic, And Cognitive Phenotypes In The Aβpp/Ps1 And Appnl-F/Nl-F Models Of Alzheimer's Disease., Jesse Britz, Emmanuel Ojo, Asmita Dhukhwa, Takashi Saito, Takaomi C Saido, Erin R Hascup, Kevin N Hascup, Shelley A Tischkau

Articles

BACKGROUND: Circadian disruption has long been recognized as a symptom of Alzheimer's disease (AD); however, emerging data suggests that circadian dysfunction occurs early on in disease development, potentially preceding any noticeable cognitive deficits.

OBJECTIVE: This study compares the onset of AD in male and female wild type (C57BL6/J), transgenic (AβPP/PS1), and knock-in (APPNL-F/NL-F) AD mouse models from the period of plaque initiation (6 months) through 12 months.

METHODS: Rhythmic daily activity patterns, glucose sensitivity, cognitive function (Morris water maze, MWM), and AD pathology (plaques formation) were assessed. A comparison was made across sexes.

RESULTS: Sex-dependent hyperactivity in AβPP/PS1 mice was …

Evaluating The Effects Of Medium Chain Fatty Acids On Sow Reproductive Characteristics, Offspring Biological Health Markers, And Growth Performance, Analicia J. Swanson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A sow’s diet can influence and her offspring not only in the suckling period, but well after weaning. The objective of this study was to determine how supplementing medium chain fatty acids (MCFA) in gestation and lactation impacted offspring growth performance as well as the biological markers of pig quality from the suckling period until week 6 of the nursery period. A total of 77 primparious and multiparious females and their 438 offspring were utilized in this study. Sows and gilts (218.15 kg ± 32.15 kg BW at d28 of gestation) were assigned to one of 2 dietary treatments: Control …

Model Minority Perceptions: The Lived Experiences Of Asian American Women In Collegiate Sports, Anna Ponzio

Pitzer Senior Theses

This study examines the impact and the implications of the model minority myth in the lives of Asian American women athletes. It draws on thirteen semi-structured, in-depth interviews with women currently competing in college sports who grapple with their intersectional identities as Asian American athletes and as women. I analyze the effects of the model minority expectations through individual internalization of the myth and its associated ideologies. This study looks at the ways that they are physically perceived as female athletes and the racialized nature of sports through the objectification of their appearances. Additionally, it explores the parental influence on …

Queer Survival Amidst Hiv/Aids, Covid-19 And Homelessness, Julia Young

Pitzer Senior Theses

The treatment and survival of a society's marginalized peoples reveal the true impacts of a pandemic. An analysis of homeless queer youth during the HIV/AIDS and SARS-CoV-2 crises lays bare the systemic failure of the United States government to provide equitable healthcare.

I compare the HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 pandemics in queer homeless youth to demonstrate the dangers of disease moralization via a sociocultural analyses of disease stigma and responsibility politics. Utilizing syndemic theory I draw on the synergistic relationship between disease and illness to describe the unique challenges queer homeless youth face. A syndemic framework is applied to address common …

Growing Meat On Plants: Using Intermediate Cbd-Rgd Fusion Proteins To Improve Bovine Satellite Cell Attachment On Cellulose-Based Scaffolds, Julian Cohen

Pitzer Senior Theses

Cellular agriculture is an emerging technology aiming to replace existing methods for animal agriculture with tissue engineering and cell culture-based technologies. Cultured meat falls within this purview, using a biomimetic approach to recreate animal muscle tissue through tissue engineering. In the attempt to diminish the necessity of animal-derived materials within this process, plant-based scaffolds can be used as a substrate upon which stem cells are cultured. Due to the unfavorable environment of cellulose for mammalian cell-surface proteins, the approach was taken of coating cellulose nanofiber films with a fusion protein composed of a cellulose binding domain (CBD) protein and the …

Beyond The Technical Dimensions Of Water: Community-Based Efforts For Water Justice In The High Desert, Ella Meyer

Pitzer Senior Theses

Water injustice is a result of the co-constitution of water and power from the global to the local level. In the small High Desert town of Adelanto, CA, concerns over the water quality and its association with overall quality of life incentivized a collaborative project to investigate dealings of water. A multidimensional analysis of the water system uncovers an instance of water injustice that is complex and linked to water issues regionally in the Inland Southern California area, as well as globally. Globalized discourses, climate change, global capitalism and flows of immigration are some of the global processes linked to …

The Heirloom As Evidence: Investigating The Colonial Trace Preserved Within My Family’S Sandalwood Box, Olivia Meehan

Pitzer Senior Theses

This paper accompanies my senior art exhibition Picturing the Colonial Trace. Pulling from a wide range of interdisciplinary scholars, I theorize the practice of critical white auto-ethnography through visual interrogations of family heirlooms. The heirloom as evidence holds within its form a colonial trace. I investigate this trace through my creative practice, revealing the environmental, economic, and interpersonal histories of the British colonization of the Indian subcontinent. My art disrupts my family’s narrative of a benevolent British Empire and redirects attention to the silences of my family archive. This thesis proposes a potential model for white scholars of Environmental …